


Parry

by Heather C (riteinthefeels)



Series: The Woes of Deceit [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, mentions of Sifki, naked kissing, sluttery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-06 15:22:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riteinthefeels/pseuds/Heather%20C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor and Loki try to deal with their feelings for each other and fail pretty miserably. Loki gets his ass beat. Loki sluts it up wherever possible, because why not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parry

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if it's clear, but this takes place shortly after the flashback in "Silvertongue."

“What of Sif?” Thor asks, quizzing Loki about their closest friends.

It’s the first time they have spoken more than a dozen words since his incestuous tutelage. Thor could not even hear his brother’s name without a swell of confusion rising within him. His cheeks would flush and his eyes would dart nervously to the shadows as he fought to control the movement in his pants.

He had slipped through doorways at the faintest whisper of his brother’s sultry voice, but the effect had not diminished. He even went so far as to move his belongings to an empty room on the same hall, announcing the decision to his parents after the fact and avoiding the tortured glare from Loki at dinner that night.

Loki, perfectly content to give him the cold shoulder for the remainder of their lives if necessary, had been accosted one night while slinking back to his bedroom from a drunken ruckus with the son of the new ambassador from Nidavellir. He had felt the biting static radiating from Thor’s skin long before his blurred vision focused on the halo his brother’s hair cast even in dim torch light. Like a mastiff, Thor’s presence demanded acknowledgement, and his bulk commanded obedience, so Loki had to allow him back into what was once their shared chambers.

Thor’s back grows clammy against the stone wall as Loki washes the stink of ale and sex from pallid skin.

“Sif… is Sif,” Loki replies, ducking his head to flush the soap nest from his hair.

“You know what I mean,” Thor pleads.

“I am not daft, Thor,” he snaps, rising to his waist in the muddying water. “Why, after months of silence, have you come to _my_ quarters in the middle of the night to harass me about our friends as if I were a porcelain doll you just now realized has been left to the elements and must be purified and protected at all costs?!”

“You expect me to act as though nothing happened, do you not? As if we are still just brothers? As if we can _ever be_ brothers again,” Thor bellows, thunder claps outside echoing his rising temper. “Yet you attack me when I do so. What do you want, Loki?”

“To sleep,” he growls, long leg reaching over the edge of the tub and groping for solid footing on the slippery floor. He watches Thor look away, watches his cheeks flush, and thinks how amusing it would be if he weren’t such a nuisance lately. Sighing and steadying himself on the edge of the tub, he swings his other leg over as Thor pushes up from his seat and hurries from the room.

He stumbles back to the bed they shared as boys, until Thor informed Frigga that they were too old to be sleeping in the same bed, and besides, Loki kicked in his sleep. The cardial rending of that rejection echoes within his chest as he falls upon soft furs and his eyelids squeeze out the waking world.

~*~

Days pass, and the brothers avoid each other by taking their meals at odd hours and glancing down deserted corridors from the safety of doorframes.

Loki trains in the ring with a sapling stable boy too green to properly block his attacks. Shrill cries echo from the stands in the deserted arena, and Thor watches for minutes from his lonesome seat in the box before the flash of gold catches Loki’s eye. Straightening, he waves the boy away and approaches the box, glistening chest heaving as his heart races in the afternoon sun.

“So good of you to join me, brother,” he calls, brandishing the polearm he wields. “Care to test your mettle against me? I dare say I’ll be an easy target. I’ve not much practice with this.”

“Sincerity eludes you,” Thor retorts, standing and leaning against the edge of the box. “I come to make peace.”

“Round two, then?” Loki laughs, grabbing a handhold on the edge of the box and hoisting himself to the railing. Thin lips crack into a smile as Thor offers him a water skin.

The lopsided grin permeates the air, transposing itself upon the corners of Thor’s mouth, and he reaches falteringly for his brother’s arm. His hand drops just close enough to brush the sweat from a lean bicep.

“That was a dirty trick you played upon me, Loki,” he begins. “I don’t know how—“

“If you’ve come to make amends, you’re off to a poor start,” the trickster interrupts, smile vanishing.

“You’ve no right to be angry, after what you—“

“ _I’ve no right?_ I played no tricks. You asked my counsel, and I gave it. Begone, I’ve no wish to be in your presence.”

“How dare you—“

“No, how dare _you._ Do not seek me again,” he voices a hoarse whisper.

Thor reaches for his arm once again, but blunt fingers pass right through and the illusion dissipates. With a fierce yell, he swings his hammer-arm through one of the box’s posts, and then stalks from the arena.

~*~

Another sleazy tavern, complete with stale drink and women much past their prime, sees the thunderer nursing ale on deadened taste buds at a vacant bar. It must be the hundredth he’s been to in as many days searching. He caught his brother in a place like this once. Loki had confessed he went often to “escape the drudgery of palace life,” as he put it.

Thor hopes to find him in one again, but at this rate it could take centuries. Norns know the realms have plenty from which to choose.

His father had chided when the first rumors began to trickle in of the crown prince frequenting such embarrassing establishments, so Thor branched further, avoiding the taverns where he was likely to be recognized. The latest lies on a dirt road in Alfheim, deserted for miles besides the handful of dwellings surrounding it. Dusty housewares and fabrics lining the walls suggest it doubles as a rarely used general store.

He had swung open the door hours ago, shaking rain from bare arms and glancing at the few patrons. Two grizzled elves had slid from their stools as he stalked toward the bar. The bartender had wordlessly slid a large tin stein before him when he engulfed a stool.

Thinking it best to look a commoner, Thor had left his cape and armor at home with Mjolnir. Rugged leather wrapped his torso in a makeshift vest, and he had traded a beggar outside Asgard’s walls five gold pieces for his pants. They reek of old piss and older muck, far from anything a future king would wear.

The tavern door creaks open, allowing gusts of humid air to waft through the bar. Thor mumbles over a half-full mug and turns stiffly on the wooden stool. Bleary eyes pry through the haze, surrendering their focus to the flickering shadows.

“Loki?” he calls hopefully, voice barely above a whisper.

Penumbra in humanoid form shuffles in a lurch, collapsing against Thor’s bulk. Blood pools in drops around the room’s perimeter and spurts arcs from an ill concealed wound high on the figure’s thigh. It soaks a spot through Thor’s pants before he throws the creature to the ground, jagged nails clutching at his leg. The man collapses with a grunt, one hand still wrapped around Thor’s calf. A flash of green peeks at the golden god through puffy, purpling eyelids, sharp cheekbones awash in the swelling of his cheeks.

Thor slides from the bar stool, scoops the man in his arms, and stumbles up the stairs. He kicks open the first unlocked door and lays the bloody heap onto a lumpy bed. Tripping over himself as he turns, he half-falls back to the bar and returns bearing a pile of rags and a bottle of clear liquor. A basin sloshes clean water as he pulls it over to the bed.

He begins to strip the layers of rough-edged black garments from the man, tearing where he cannot easily pull them off, until a dark heap of leather and silk lays next to the bed and the battered form of his brother lays upon it. Loki groans and flinches when Thor presses a rag to the leg injury, stained cotton blooming red. The blonde throws the dripping cloth to the ground and grabs another, binding it tight with a torn strip wrapped around the pale thigh.

He cleans blood and dirt from his brother’s face with a damp cloth, then checks again the deep thigh wound. Seeing the flow reduced to a trickle, he braces Loki’s shoulders with one muscular arm and pours alcohol over the wound as the lean man bellows feverishly and wriggles under Thor’s weight. Finally he quiets, and Thor wraps the gash with a fresh dressing and carries Loki to the other bed, barely large enough for a grown man.

Feeling his brother’s flesh grown cold, he strips off the leather vest and dirty pants and crawls in beside him. They both sleep fitfully--one attacked by raging fever and delirium onset by loss of blood, the other curls around his brother’s shivering form, denied peace by persistent worry.

~*~

Morning greets them not with the soft, comforting warmth of the sun’s rays pouring through oily glass, but with persistent showers hammering the tin roof in monotonous staccato. Unburdened by drunken torpor, Thor unwraps himself from his brother’s quieted body and shuffles across the floor to stand before a streaked window, searching the rain drops for solace.

Loki breathes evenly, finally released by the demons of fever and chills. His eyes crack to the morning rain, and he smiles to himself at the chance to be out in the summer squall. He rolls on his hip until Thor’s broad back comes into view.

“You’re blocking the light,” he croaks.

The thunderer drags his feet across rough floorboards to sit beside his brother.

He voices concern gruffly, “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve had Hel beat out of me,” Loki’s lip twists up in a half-smile. He struggles to push himself to a sitting position, and Thor spreads a hand lightly on his chest.

“You are yet too weak, brother. Let me find food. Stay here,” and he hurries to the bar before Loki can protest.

When he returns, bearing large hunks of bread and an aged wine kept hidden in a back room, Loki has pushed himself to slouch against the headboard.  His torso, crisp white blushed purple like cyclamen, lays bare of furs or clothing. Thor sets the food and bottle on the bedside table and fetches his supplies from across the room. He weights the bed beside the pale form again, pushing bread towards Loki’s face until his brother snatches it away.

“Eat, Loki. You need your strength.”

Thor wets a rag with alcohol and holds Loki’s arm aloft, inspecting each bruise and scrape for broken bones. He rubs the cloth tenderly across inflamed skin, wiping away grime from the previous night’s storm and the furtive places to which Loki had run.

When he moves on to the torso, Loki flinches at nearly each touch of yellow-ringed bruise. The trickster’s back fares worse, light lacerations crosshatching skin in haphazard pattern. Thor’s hands lose their usual strength and surety, and tremble with each caress of cloth over injury. The delicate touch as he cleans and inspects below Loki’s waist rouses excitement too intense for the weakened trickster to control, and too obvious for Thor not to notice.

He continues down Loki’s legs, holding pretense of the concerned older sibling though the cause of his fingers’ tremor shifts from fear for Loki’s life to an arousal he barely suppresses. Swiping the rag between Loki’s toes, he looks up to see his brother’s gaze fixed upon him like a lascivious cat watching fish through the surface of a pond neither wishes to cross.

“Thor,” he rasps, frowning at the state of his voice. “You haven’t done my face.”

Pliant in the hands of needy kin, Thor leans toward him, grabbing a clean cloth and dipping it in water. A corner of the makeshift balm smooths over the lines in Loki’s forehead and down his cheeks. His eyelids, swelling abated since the night, close for Thor to dab gently across. Purple cheekbones now reveal from bloated skin. Thor washes down his nose, careful to feel for breaks in the bone, and wipes at thin lips murmuring his name.

He drops the cloth as rough palms cup Loki’s jaw. Their foreheads meet in a sea of taboo, pain their ship and uncertainty their captain. Loki moves first, chin tilting up as their eyes lock in the sea foam of passion. His lips graze Thor’s, then his tongue. Hunger pounds through Thor’s veins like the crash of waves upon rock. His mouth slacks open and Loki seizes the opportunity, a kraken let loose upon him.

He bites and sucks greedily at Thor’s lips, tongues wrestling for advantage in a game he knows neither can win. The thunderer lowers him slowly to the bed while Loki pushes against his mouth and pulls his arms. Hands fumble across white and bronze ribs.

“It would be best if you left,” a voice interrupts from the doorway. The bartender, fair-complected and platinum blonde, assesses them with the muzzle end of a rifle.

Muscles tensed, Thor turns toward the noise, “Yes, of course. Apologies.”

“We can easily handle him!” Loki protests, peeking around his brother’s side.

“Not now, brother. Can you walk?” Thor stands, bed creaking in protest as he moves.

The trickster, glaring toward unwanted company, shifts his weight slowly until his feet dangle from the mattress. He grabs onto Thor’s shoulder, pulling himself up as his brother’s arm wraps around the slender waist.

They shuffle to the door and the bartender steps aside, motioning the cold steel down the stairs.

“There is coin enough in my pants to pay for the drinks, lodging, and any reparations you are owed,” Thor mentions to him, eyes studying the grain of the wood floor while his cheeks color.

Loki simply turns to face the man, proudly displaying his battered body, and runs one finger down a jaw cloaked in white-blonde stubble.

“Pity,” he remarks. “Not for you.”

~*~

Miles from town, Thor finally stoops to set Loki upon the ground. Standing and stretching out stiff shoulders and back, he stares down at the man lounging on waterlogged soil.

“Bravo, Thor. Now what?”

“Now we go home,” the thunderer replies, sitting beside Loki on the wet grass.

“And how will you explain this?” The trickster gestures to their bodies, nude and shining in the late morning sun.

“I will not need to. Heimdall will not speak of things that do not threaten the realms. He is not our keeper.”

Sighing, Loki lays back and enjoys the feel of mud conforming to the angles of his back. “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”

“No,” Thor replies. “That’s your duty. I simply left the palace with a wish to find you. Would that I had accomplished that sooner and spared you whatever thrashing you received. At least your bones appear to all be intact.”

He turns toward Loki’s reclining body, gazing upon the colorful canvas as his brother props a leg up with bent knee.

“Like what you see?”

“Loki, don’t.”

“Fine.” He sighs, digs mud up onto his finger, and traces swirls along Thor’s skin with it. “Sif and I are together. Often. Not exclusively. She lays no claim upon me, nor I on her.”

Thor studies the pallid fingers as they mark his arm. “The two of you could be good for each other, I think.” _Better than you and I._ “You both fill roles other than those demanded by Asgard. You could find strength in her, Loki.”

“And what would she find in me, I wonder?” Loki’s eyes roll. “How shall we get home? We’ve no clothing, no money. You didn’t even bring your precious hammer.”

“I did not expect to need her. I pray Heimdall will transport us. Shall we try now?”

“Let us stay a little longer in this place. I have missed you, brother.”

“And I, you, but your wounds need tending by more experienced hands than mine. We shall talk once they have been attended.”

Thor stands and calls the gatekeeper, then lifts his brother and holds him by the shoulders as the Bifrost rockets them through space. They land, stumbling, in the observatory, and Heimdall’s brow curves at the sight of the two princes, one battered, one scruffy, and both naked as the day they were born and holding to each other like lovers trapped in the great windstorm of Hel.

Thor pretends he doesn’t see the wink Loki affords Heimdall as they pass.


End file.
